1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for improving the ability to recognize materials in an X-ray inspection system, and to an X-ray inspection system.
2. Description of the Background Art
It is known that in order to inspect objects, in particular pieces of luggage, in respect of suspicious contents, X-ray inspection equipment is used in which the objects to be inspected are irradiated by X-ray beams. For this, the X-ray inspection equipment has an X-ray source and detectors in which the intensities of the attenuated radiation are detected. Brightness values for a two-dimensional X-ray image displayed on a monitor are calculated from these intensities. Dangerous materials can be recognized in this X-ray image.
In contrast to computed tomography scanners in the medical sector, X-ray inspection equipment for security checks or nondestructive testing has fixed X-ray sources and detectors. Such X-ray inspection systems therefore only irradiate each spatial point of the inspection object in one direction. Hence, a three-dimensional reconstruction of the inspection object, required for determining the density, cannot be achieved. Therefore, materials situated behind one another in the beam path cannot be easily recognized.